


Some Promises

by theimprobable1



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:59:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theimprobable1/pseuds/theimprobable1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things Molly Hooper can't do, not even for Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Quick and unbetaed, apologies for any mistakes.

There’s Sherlock’s violin sitting on the armchair opposite hers. Molly wonders if Sherlock left it there and John couldn’t bear to put it away, or if John opened the case with reverent fingers, carefully arranged the violin and the bow on the chair. A memorial. A shrine built by the most steadfast of followers. She can imagine him doing it, touching Sherlock’s belongings like they’re sacred, trying to preserve the faintest traces of his presence. She can imagine it all too vividly, and that’s why she has come.

“If you had to choose between betraying one friend and hurting another, what would you do?”

It sounds both inadequate and exaggerated. John wouldn’t call himself her friend, and nor would Sherlock, most probably. But at the same time – what does it matter what labels you apply to people in your life? It doesn’t make you miss them less. It doesn’t make them hurt less. Hearts are still broken.

John says nothing and continues staring out of the window. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want her here – it’s obvious that he only wants one person, here or anywhere else, and he isn’t coming. John hasn’t uttered two full sentences since Molly arrived, he gave her a cup of cold tea that tastes two days old and he hasn’t even looked at her. That’s just as well – Molly can’t bear looking at him. She can’t bear seeing him so— _gray_. Washed out, old, small. A black-and-white copy of a colourful original.

“Because that’s what I have to choose between, you see,” she continues weakly, eyes fixed on her tea. “Because I—made a promise, but I don’t… I don’t think I can keep it.”

“I don’t follow,” John says. It doesn’t sound like it bothers him.

Molly didn’t question Sherlock’s choices back when she had the chance. He’s Sherlock Holmes, after all, and she’s just an impressionable girl with an unfortunate infatuation. She agreed to do what he asked her to do because he asked her. She was never able to refuse him anything—and she doesn’t regret it, of course she doesn’t, she’s glad she was able to help him, but she wishes that she had considered everything his request would entail before she gave him her word.

She knew she would have to lie, of course, but she didn’t realise what it would mean to lie to John Watson.

Her resolve has lasted for over two almost two months, but she has reached her limit now. She held out when she had to prevent John from entering the mortuary, she held out when she watched him break the coffee machine in helpless anger, she held out during the funeral where he sat in the front row, head bowed, tears falling in his lap. But it was when she couldn’t see him, when she lay awake in bed and thought about the time when her father died, and Jenny, and Aunt Beryl, when she wondered if he couldn’t sleep either, that her conscience and empathy conspired to make her determination waver.

She isn’t as strong as Sherlock supposed. She just isn’t. She can’t let someone hurt when she knows she has the means to stop it. Sentiment, Sherlock would say with a sneer. Or maybe he wouldn’t. He'd changed - John had changed him. Maybe he’d understand. Maybe he will, when he comes back. Maybe he’ll thank her for it, for not making John suffer longer than necessary.

Or maybe he’ll hate her for ruining his master plan, whatever it is, and never trust her again. That’s a risk she’ll have to take.

“I promised something to Sherlock,” she says, her voice barely audible over the rattling of her tea cup in the saucer. John’s shoulders tense at the sound of Sherlock’s name. She puts the cup on the coffee table, and grips the hem of her skirt to stop her hands from shaking. “The night before he…”

“Died,” John says, his voice calm and even but still the most heartbreaking sound Molly has ever heard. “You can say it.”

She can say it. She has to say it.

“I promised him not to tell the truth.”

Finally, John moves. He turns to look at her, and the circles under his eyes look like bruises. She resists the sudden impulse to get up and take him in her arms and tell him that everything will be all right. Nothing is going to be all right, of course, not even after he’s heard her out – but it might be just a little bit more bearable. For both of them.

“Truth?” he asks, like the word has lost all meaning. Maybe all words have lost meaning for him.

Some promises cannot be kept, she supposes as she nods shakily, and takes a deep breath.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Some Promises [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712750) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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